“Chautauqua Blueprint” to Prosecute Syrian War Crimes Unveiled

For coverage of the “Chautauqua Blueprint” by the Christian Science Monitor, click here.

On Oct. 3, 2013 INSCT Professor David M. Crane visited the National Press Club in Washington, DC for a news conference about the “Chautauqua Blueprint,” also known as the “discussion draft” of a “Statute for a Syrian Extraordinary Tribunal to Prosecute Atrocity Crimes,” a project that Crane co-chairs.

The Chautauqua Blueprint was signed on Aug. 27, 2013 at the Chautauqua Institution in Upstate New York during a meeting—attended by several chief prosecutors of various international criminal tribunals—about war crimes committed during the ongoing Syrian Civil War.

The National Press Club press conference will be followed by Crane’s testifying before the House International Relations Committee on Oct. 24, 2013 about the Blueprint and Syracuse University College of Law’s Syrian Accountability Project, another cornerstone of the international effort to bring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and members of his regime to account for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Professor David M. Crane (left) stands with Paul Williams (center), president of the Public International Law & Policy Group and sponsor of the National Press Club event, and Professor Michael Scharf (right) of Case Western Reserve School of Law and a “Chautauqua Blueprint” project co-chair.

Professor David M. Crane (center) stands with (left) Ryan Suto (LAW ’13), a 2013 recipient of an INSCT Certificate of Advanced Study in Postconflict Resolution, and (right) Adom Cooper (LAW ’12), a 2012 graduate of INSCT’s Curricular Program in National Security and Counterterrorism Law. Both Suto and Cooper worked on the Syrian Accountability Project while students at SU College of Law.